Gene Wolfe - The Wizard

“You are a man of Mythgarthr, and a good man. Are all the men of Mythgarthr good? I do not ask whether they are all as good as you—I know they cannot be. Only whether they are good at all.”

“I would like to think there is some good in the worst of them.”

“But on balance?”

I thought then of Master Thope. He had sought to save me when the duke’s knights would have killed me. For that effort to protect the duke’s honor, he had been stabbed in the back. “On balance,” I said, “many who think themselves good are not.”

“Just so. You have been to Skai. I have not. Let us leave aside the Giants of Winter and Old Night. They are for the most part evil as I understand it, and some say they are entirely so. We will not speak of them. Among the Overcyns, are there some in whom the worse part outweighs the better?”

I explained that there was said to be one at least, and that the rest—though they punished him—did not take his life for his brothers’ sake.

“Here in Aelfrice?”

“The Aelf are worse than we, if anything.”

“So in Muspel. There are many who are strong and very wise, though not good. Grengarm was neither the strongest nor the worst. They plotted to seize this fair world and despoil it. I tried to dissuade them, for the Aelf should be the objects of our reverence, as the Overcyns are yours. I tried, as I say. I failed.” He sighed so that my heart went out to him.

“When I saw at last that it was no use, I determined to frustrate them. I came here.” He spread his hands, mocking himself with a wry smile. “Humbly, I warned the Aelf of their danger. Some believed me, but most did not. They are divided into many clans, as you must know. I warned them that if they did not unite against us they must fall to us one by one. Those who had refused to credit me refused to credit that as well. Among those who believed, some would not merge clans with the rest. Your Queen Disiri was one of those. You see I am being completely honest with you.”

“You were my friend,” I told him, “when I was wounded and needed one badly. Now I must ask about other friends, those upon the Isle of Glas. How did they get there?”

Garsecg shrugged. “They wandered into Aelfrice. So you did as a boy, not so long ago.”

I nodded.

“My friends and I would have sent them home, but the white dragon—perhaps you saw it—snatched them from us and carried them to the Isle of Glas.”

“You want me to fight that thing.”

“Certainly not! Did I say so? You would be killed.”

I looked at him sharply.

“You asked me how they got there.” Garsecg laid a hand on my shoulder, a firm touch and a friendly one. “You should have asked how you yourself came here. I sent Uri to fetch you, realizing you would want to know of their plight. I intend to recapture my tower if I can. And if I can, I will mount to its top and see to their welfare. But events here move slowly, while time flows swiftly in your Mythgarthr.”

“Which is where they are.”

“Exactly. For them, decades may pass while I collect an army. You have influence in Mythgarthr. You might collect a force there and sail to their rescue. Such was my thought. If you would prefer to join us here, we would be delighted to have you.”

I considered the matter for as long as it might take a man to pray, watching the farthest breakers so that I would not see Garsecg’s eyes. My whole life, it seemed to me, was wrapped up in this—my knighthood, the Valfather and the Lady, even Disiri. At last I said, “You are a dragon of Muspel. Isn’t that your true shape?”

Garsecg nodded. “It is, though my sire was a king in Mythgarthr.”

“And your friends. Aren’t they dragons of Muspel too?”

“Some are. Some are of the Sea Aelf, as they appear.”

“Cannot several dragons defeat one?”

“We will try, leading an army of the Aelf. You have seen me as a dragon. Was I as large as the white dragon?”

“Not nearly. That was your true shape?” I took off my helmet as I spoke, and laid it on the shingle.

“It was.”

I pulled my hauberk over my head; its links were so fine that I could store the whole of it in my helmet, and that was what I did, admiring it for what might well be the last time and wondering whether it was the wearing that brought its blessing or mere ownership. Grengarm had owned it, after all.

“Are you going to swim out there?” Garsecg asked.

“You know I am. I have sworn to fight Kulili.” I undressed, and explained to Gylf that he would have to guard my armor and my clothing, and that he was to trust no one. He would not speak, but bared his teeth at Garsecg to show he understood.

No more than Skai is Aelfrice like Mythgarthr. I have tried to show you how different it is; but I know that I have failed. At this point in my story, Ben, I have to confess that even I had not known just how different it was until I drew Eterne.

The sound of her blade leaving the scabbard became a wind. (You cannot imagine this.) That wind snatched away such fog as remained. In Aelfrice, one never sees the sun. But there is light; and as the fog vanished, that light waxed until the whole sea flashed like a mirror.

Over it flew ships of the olden time, long ships with many oars like wings, and embroidered sails red and black and green and gold, and high prows and high sterns of painted wood. At stern and prow stood the knights of Eterne, real as I myself was real. Their armor, the blades of the swords they held (those were Eterne too), and their smiles gleamed and glinted in that light.

Still grasping Eterne, I dove into the sea.

It is no easy thing to swim while holding a heavy sword. I did my best, swimming mostly underwater with my legs and my left arm for oars. The advantage I had (and it was a great one) was that the water did not drown me, but received me graciously. I cannot say that I breathed it as I breathed air ashore—I was never conscious of breathing at all. Perhaps I drew breath through my skin; or perhaps breath was not necessary to me as long as I remained there.

Sharks came like shadows, swift and silent. One, then two, then three; the third was of monstrous size. I knew that though I might kill one, I could never kill all three if they attacked me together. Desperate, I slashed the nearest. Eterne’s fabled blade severed head from tail, releasing a storm of dark blood and a dozen foulnesses. The remaining sharks fell upon it like hawks, and I swam for the surface as a dying man swims for Skai.

The ships of the Knights of the Sword were there and all about me, one not half a bowshot off. I had not thought them real, and had never supposed I might climb aboard one. But climb on board I did, and it was a wondrous thing to stand dripping upon the deck of such a ship, a ship rowed not by convicts but by bearded warriors in leather byrnies studded with bronze, men of mighty arms whose eyes flashed like ice.

“I am Sir Hunbalt,” said the knight to me. “I welcome you to our company.” We clasped hands and embraced.

Soon the white dragon surfaced. We went for it with arrow and spear, though I could do nothing until we closed. There was a ram beyond the prow; I stood on it holding the carven figurehead with my free hand while the oars beat behind me like the white wings of the griffin, and churned the sea to foam. “Disiri!” I shouted. “For Disiri!”

It was by this, I would guess, that the white dragon knew me. The ship on which her jaws had closed fell from her mouth. Our eyes met, and I saw the battle rage die in them as I felt it dying in my own. She sank beneath the sea, and I knew I must follow.

In Skai I saw grander sights than ever Mythgarthr or Aelfrice can offer, but none so strange as this. The dragon melted as I watched, so that I might almost have thought the sea dissolved it. It had been a dragon, great and terrible. It became a cloud, white, shimmering, and ever-changing. And at last the face of Kulili.